What is Pen-Chant?

Pen-Chant is a quarterly newsletter, the result of a visionary initiative by Mr. Vijayn Nair, MAT president 2017, to tap into the latent literary potentials of the Malayalee community of Tampa, FL. Mrs. Priya Menon, a freelance writer and editor based in Tampa, was entrusted with the task of turning this dream into reality. She reached out to the community and gathered together a small group of amateur writers and writing enthusiasts and together, they became the Pen-Chanters. Over the past year, the Pen-Chanters have brought out three issues of Pen-Chant and their work has been garnering great appreciation from all quarters. Pen-Chant’s content is diverse, pertinent, thought provoking, entertaining and eminently readable, and we are proud of the quality of the writing that we put out there. The writers are an eclectic group, ranging from students at the elementary school level all the way through to college-goers, to highly qualified professionals from various fields and industries to homemakers and retirees- our combined passion for writing being the unifying factor.

Whereas most cultural organizations tend to gravitate towards and encourage performance oriented arts, the Malayalee Association of Tampa has taken a rather unique step and given a platform to its larger community of thinkers, dreamers, writers, artists and ideators to express themselves. Pen-Chant aims to be their voice.

A huge thank you to Mr. Rajesh Ramachandran, who works hard on the cover and layout design and makes every issue of Pen-Chant look as good as it does; so also the web team, which includes Rajesh Ramachandran, Bishin Joseph, Prasanna Meenakshi, Dolly Venad and Robin. Thanks also to the great support by MAT’s trustee board, led by Mr. Josemon Thathamkulam, for Pen-Chant. With all this encouragement, Pen-Chant is truly evolving to be the voice of the Indian immigrant community and a great platform for exchanging ideas, telling our stories and celebrating our culture.

Despite being a MAT initiative, Pen-Chant sincerely seeks to go beyond the boundaries of regionalism, religion, culture and community and become a space for literary enthusiasts of any denomination to come together and inspire one another through our work.

Once again, special thanks to Mr. Vijayan Nair, Mrs. Priya Menon, Mr. Rajesh Ramachandran, all the talented writers and artists, and the Web team for putting Pen-Chant together and taking it to the next dimension. We can’t wait to see where Pen-Chant will go from here!

Team MAT